CEV Women’s European Championship 2019 - hosts Turkey, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia

    Brankica is playing like she was the best player in the world! She makes look like that are nobody in the other side of the net, it is scary and beautiful

    Quote from pope

    Italy has to travel to Slokavia and then Turkey? Vowww.

    Bulgaria will actually have to travel a considerably bigger distance if they win against Azerbaijan in Budapest and then have to come back to Ankara.

    The biggest problem for Italy is that there are apparently no regular flights between Lodz and Bratislava, but even if they don't take a charter flight, Warsaw is not too far away and they can fly to Vienna from there, and then Bratislava is just a short ride away.


    But really, the entire play-off round should have been played in the same place. You can have four matches a day at the same venue.


    Edit: will Italy be going back from Bratislava to Lodz for the QF? Now that IS crazy.

    LOL, Italy didn't want to lose this match. It complicated things for them. 1st of all they have to travel to Slovakia and then in 1/4 they will probably face Russia. Should ITA won then they will stay in Łodz and play Spain. Now they have to go to Slovakia and then come back to Poland.

    But seriously, I can't believe how ridiculous this is. So you play five matches in one place, then go to some other place to play ONE match, then go back to where you were before to again play ONE match, then fly almost 2000 km to yet another place to finish the tournament.

    Really, who came up with this brilliant idea?!

    Quote from JoanaBG

    But seriously, I can't believe how ridiculous this is. So you play five matches in one place, then go to some other place to play ONE match, then go back to where you were before to again play ONE match, then fly almost 2000 km to yet another place to finish the tournament.

    Really, who came up with this brilliant idea?!

    These people obviously have no respect for the players.


    I'm not sure if Italy will have any energy left to fight against Serbia.

    Quote from ossubtus

    i guess that’s the disadvantage of having 4 hosts, they have to distribute all matches among them. but wasn’t it already settled in advance where the QF & semi matches were going to be?

    Yes, but the point was that the top 2 teams per group would stay put for their 1/8 finals matches, so barring upsets, this travelling back and forth would be avoided.

    However, the additional rule of two hosts not being able to play against each other created this mess with Italy going to Slovakia before heading back to Poland.

    And I have to wonder if the Italians were even aware of it and would they have tried harder to win if they had known the consequences. It wouldn't be the first time a team didn't know the rules. I remember the Russian women's basketball team being hilariously eliminated from ECh one year because they thought a win of any kind in the last round of the group stage would be enough to come through. And they won the match and celebrated, only to find out soon enough they actually needed to win by a bigger margin, which they could have easily done, but they had cleary stopped trying in the last minutes of the match, thinking they had done enough.

    Dang Russia is shooting themselves in the foot rn, they could have an easier path to SF had they won that match against Germany. Now they have to go through Italy and Serbia just to reach semis :white:

    well, joana, the athletes’ job is to go out there and win. it’s a lot to calculate in your head all the what ifs and what nots, to see how they can manipulate outcomes. i blame ITA & RUS for not winning those crucial matches.


    [remember rio Q, all DOM had to do was throw their match to PUR at norceca, and they would have gone to the easy, last ICQ tournament, where they’d easily qualified. but they didn’t and they stayed home...]


    sorry to say, right now the bottom half of the draw looks rather weak to me...

    Yes, Egonu had 60% in attack, Sylla over 70%, Sorokaiteover 50% still Italy lost on purpose to get hardest draw and additional travel :rolll: This forum is :white:

    Quote from 7UP

    Yes, Egonu had 60% in attack, Sylla over 70%, Sorokaiteover 50% still Italy lost on purpose to get hardest draw and additional travel :rolll: This forum is :white:

    Don't worry about it, according to them Serbia lost on purpose as well... Even though they won. :lol::obey:

    Quote from 7UP

    Yes, Egonu had 60% in attack, Sylla over 70%, Sorokaiteover 50% still Italy lost on purpose to get hardest draw and additional travel :rolll: This forum is :white:

    I read comments of people which were in the hall, they said that Italians had great party and were "not serious", especially strange was celebrating with Polish fans during the match.


    Also sub with Chrichella-Danesi was very strange as Chris was playing very good that evening.


    This is my personal opinion but I think as well that Italians gave up this 5th set. Sorokaite's 3 errors in reception and 3 really ridiculous errors in the row in service, 7 error in total in 5th while in the rest of the sets Italians made max 6 error during full time sets. Also those smiles of Sorokaite and Mazzanti. But this is only my opinion so you can ignore it ;)


    Also after winning two sets there was not difference for Italians how this match will end.